


Waiting

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chester hates winter. But something about spending it with Brad makes it bearable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting

Chester hates winter, was always a summer person himself. He doesn’t get how Brad can like it so much. Too cold. Snow everywhere. Ice – he day dreams of his car careering off the road and ploughing into a tree, snow cascading down and burying him along with every trace of the accident. And there, under the snow, he’d die, freezing and forgotten.

“I’m cold, let’s go back.” He prays his voice doesn’t sound as whiny to Brad as it does to himself.

The guitarist turns back to look at him and raises an eyebrow. “You go back.”

Reverse psychology. Fuck. Chester grits his teeth and jogs to catch up, his breath clouding his vision and fogging up his glasses. He tears them off his face and rubs at them furiously with his sleeve before putting them back on and stepping in front of Brad. Puppy dog eyes do you work now, please.

Brad rolls his eyes and grabs Chester’s scarf, pulling it up to cover his nose and says “That’ll keep you warmer.”

“Mmph,” He murmurs and his glasses fog again. Which is just great. Thanks. This had all started as a bonding experience. Brad’s idea, of course. The park, he’d said with such enthusiasm and with such a beautiful smile that Chester couldn’t help but smile back and agree.

By the time Chester’s glasses clear Brad has already ambled away from him, his boots leaving prints in the snow. He remembers this, remembers days like this with Lee when they went on vacation. New York. Always New York. Because Christmas there was so much more fairy-tale-beautiful than in Arizona. He remembers waiting for his dad to take the lead, just so he could step in his foot prints and keep his sneakers dry.

His feet are a size smaller than Brad’s, he notices when he steps in the print. He tucks his chin against his chest and step step steps until he notices that there are no more foot prints. He looks up and into Brad’s eyes.

Fuck. Caught in the memory, again. It’s sad, really, that there are things he just can’t let go of.

Brad smiles fondly and Chester prays that his blush can pass off as the cold. It’s the cold, not the embarrassment. That’s what it is. And he says, “Hi?”

The guitarist just laughs quietly and his eyes do that, thing. They light up, a twinkle. Like a star in the sky or whatever. The spark of metal on metal as a car scrapes the road railings and crashes into a tree.

“You okay?”

He is, really. There’s nothing wrong. Too much time to think is the problem, he suspects. Perhaps if his mind weren’t left to wander so much he wouldn’t ever feel down. If he was never given a chance to reminisce perhaps he would always be happy. Or maybe he just needs to spend more time around Mike. They say laughter is good for the soul and if you hang around Mike enough he’s guaranteed to do something stupid to make you laugh.

In the end he says, “Cold,” and exhales into his scarf.

“Wimp.”

“No, I just...” I just don’t enjoy the sensation of balls retreating inside of my body for warmth. He doesn’t know when they start walking again, doesn’t know if Brad deliberately ignored his lack of excuse or if he’s still waiting for him to fill in the gaps.

Waiting, probably.

The pair of them. They spend a lot of their life waiting for each other.

 

***

They stop by the pond. It’s frozen and Chester wonders where all of the fish are. He can’t see them, even if he squints, imagines them frozen beneath the surface like a video tape on pause.

He flops down on a bench and wraps his arms around his waist, breathing heavily. After a moment of silence he reaches down and grabs a pebble from his feet, casts it out over the frozen pond and watches it slide across the surface until it stops.

Brad says, “Let he without sin...”

Chester turns to him and raises an eyebrow. Turns back to the pond and mutters, “Thought you were Jewish.”

“Just because you don’t know anything about other faiths doesn’t mean I don’t.”

Chester takes a moment to be offended before realising that he has no right to. He barely knows anything about his own faith, let alone other peoples. He feels bad for knowing nothing of Brad’s religion. He’s never been big on the whole God thing. He’s not an atheist, just believes that the less involved he is the less he will feel ashamed for his own actions. He hears drugs binges and sodomy aren’t big tickets to heaven.

Brad says, “You’re doing it again.”

“What?”

“You’re thinking. Hard. It rots your teeth.”

It makes no sense and it isn’t funny but Chester laughs anyway. Through his scarf. He’s warmer, now, and suddenly loves Brad for being a winter person. There’s a sense of calm as he stares out at the pond. Its nice here, just him and Brad. This is how it used to be. When the band first started touring he automatically clung to Brad. Mike hated him for it, so Chester pushed him hard against the side of the RV and kissed him.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. If he’d known that Mike had only hated him out of jealousy, that he wanted Chester all for himself. If he’d known that he’d have never kissed him. Now he feels bad every time their eyes meet even though he knows Mike is over it now. He has Anna. Happily married, planning a family, blah blah and all that bullshit.

He looks at Brad, his dark eyes blank as he stares straight ahead. Brad makes this big deal about being normal. You don’t realise how beautiful he is because he wears shirts with holes in and jeans with burns from where Chester was smoking in the bunk section of the bus and dropped his cigarette.

He feels the need to say something, but all his mouth wants to do is kiss Brad’s and it’s so hard to resist that urge that he has to bite his bottom lip and pull his scarf up higher until only his eyes are visible.

Brad turns and stares at him. Laughs and his eyes do that road-accident-spark thing again. Chester wonders if he’s waiting for him to say something, but daren’t break the silence in case he steps on Brad’s words.

Eventually they both turn to face the pond again. And in the cold, they wait.


End file.
